Tesla Sets IPO Terms, Now Expects to Raise $185M

Electric vehicle startup Tesla Motors has set the terms of its long-awaited IPO and is looking to raise substantially more than it previously estimated. Tesla is looking to sell 11.1 million common shares at between $14 and $16 each, and estimates it will raise as much as $185 million, up from the roughly $100 million it said it hoped to raise back in January.

Tesla will also sell $50 million worth of shares to Toyota in a private placement (that deal was announced back in May). The offering will give Tesla a market cap of $1.46 billion. The comapny will hit the public markets under the symbol TSLA in what could be the biggest and possibly the first public offering for a U.S. car company since Ford Motor’s IPO more than 50 years ago.

However, Tesla has never generated a profit and doesn’t expect to do so until “significant deliveries” of the Model S (its next-generation sedan) begin in 2012, at the earliest. Since its founding through March 31, 2010, Tesla generated $147.6 million in revenue with an accumulated deficit of $290.2 million. Tesla has raised over $200 million from investors including Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Daimler and Vantage Point Venture Partners.

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